Well, I just played Master of Orion I and it turns out the slider system isn't as inivative as I thought. Both Master of Orion I and Galactic Civlizations II have a slider system but it is very poorly executed. Galactic Civilzations II because of the all-labs and all-factories exploit and MOO I because of the ecosystem controller where you constantly have to fudge the ecosystem controller.

So a well-executed slider system would be innovative. Sad to read that you're updating the game for a higher resolution but if it makes the User Interface better than I'm all for it. Your games always have a good User Interface.

Anyways after playing moo I, I'm just going to say I'm so glad I don't have to manually use ships to explore. I'm so glad I manually don't have to send ships to attack my enemy rather something like click attack on an enemy planet and manually put ships on the game board.

Well luckily with my GUI system, this morning I already almost "ported" the game completely to 800x600. I was going to 1024x768 but I realized was too large (bigger VRAM requirements etc). at 800x600 looks very cool and there's even space for more buttons and info on the same screen
Well MOI is the oldest version, I think MO2 was the best one... you have to manually explore the new planets, but isn't too much frustrating IMHO what sucks instead are those automatic battles. MO2 for that rulez, has a turnbased combat that is very cool, with lot of different weapons etc.
Mine won't be so accurate in term of details but I think the boardgame will be interesting enough with different tactics based on the kind of enemy and type of starsystem (considering my game budget!).

I played MOO2 and it too sort of uses a percentage allocation system but on a planetary level. However, there's really only two choices: science and production as you only want barely enough food to live. One thing that was interesting, was the race picks. Certain picks changed your opportunity costs greatly for your percentage allocations: Cybernetic, Tolerant, Lithovore, governments, etc.

I think racial traits that greatly change the opportunity costs should be incorporated into Space War. Of course there is only the Blood Legion and The Blue Army but there could still be androids, etc. that all make up a part of the larger population. The more androids you have as part of the population the more engineers you need to make materials for them to eat but the less food you need. Productivity greatly increases but androids provide no contributions to research.

To change the racial composition you change your percentage allocations. If you want the androids to die off than have your engineers build less so the androids have nothing to eat. If you want less humans than produce less food. There would be a chart with arrows that shows the population change each turn.

If you want more slaves than simply capture more of the Blue Army. If you don't like slaves just use genocide...

There could be other races too. Say there's a bird race that's neutral to both the Blood Legion and Blue Army. The Bird Race are great workers. Whether the bird race is drawn more to your race or your opponents race is based on your global morale and what techs+global buildings you've produced.

Yeah, more races would surely help. In first version I don't plan to put that of course but could make another nice update. It would also revolution eveything a lot (like in your example, the same planet inhabitated by humans or android would change a lot the results in term of resources/research production).
Anyway, I'll try to "reserve a spot" in the source code so that you can have different races on the various planets, each one producing a different result

Yes now is macro, but with your system I would have to go in micro-management no? or how can the different races influence the game? didn't understand what you mean maybe
Thought you mean that you could put on a planet race XX and get bonus YY out of it. Otherwise just mixing races with a slider would be the same as changing the general resource allocation slider, don't think it would work well...

Well yes that could be a solution... however for now I'll just leave as it is, I put anyway a "general tech" category where I can put future expansion technologies that could affect whole planets like that. My main goal for now is finish the game with the wargame+macromanagement simulation part (and it will be already a great result for me!).
Then who knows, I could even make an expansion and introduce micromanagement for each planet (in case someone is inclined) or use your suggestion for macro one.

I think that planetary improvements can't prescind from some form of micromanagement , it would look too much automated that way. I think is better to left out that part and maybe make an add-on adding that micromanagement part that could be optional, so everyone (hardcore and more casual player) would be happy!

Your decision to make techs/production/etc. to all be focused on the wargame part is a good one. But I can't say I'm not a little dissapointed that it's not a macroeconomic SimGalaxy with a wargame component.

However...

Looking at the galaxy settings screen, if all the techs are going to be wargame oriented then how are you going to be able to do a technological victory. How is the number of habitable and mineral planets going to matter?

Well, I have some ideas...

For the kill leader, occassionally the leader will be in one of the star ships based on your sensor technology you might know which one. If you can kill the leader before the enemies army retreats you win.

For the technological victory, you can try to "capture" technological resources. Every time a ship captures a resource technology points are added to you or your enemies score.

Habital and mineral planets can affect the game board squares. The more habital planets on the game board the better the defending races defense is. The more mineral planets on a game board, the faster the defending race can move.

Of course, habital planets and mineral planets can also affect pop growth and mineral growth.

Terraforming technologies could increase the number of habital planets on the game board.

Starbase technologies could improve starbase game board pieces(starbase game pieces increase the power of your ships).

So really there's a way to make all the fun standard 4X technologies into the board game .